A typical hood that is included with a coat or jacket is usually a design afterthought in the amount of design utility that the hood could possess, as typically the included hood with the coat or jacket usually has a face opening having a periphery with a circumferential elastic drawstring positioned within a fold about the user's face within a margin passageway of the hood face opening. The drawstring has a free end extending beyond the termination of the margin passageway at each end of the hood face opening that faces downward, resulting in two drawstring free ends. Wherein the drawstring free ends typically are able to be “cinched up” at each free end to add axial tension to the drawstring thus resulting in a reduction in the face opening via reducing the periphery to wrap the hood around the front of the user's face thus limiting environmental exposure of the user's face to eyes, nose, and mount of the user. This face opening periphery adjustment is usually the sole adjustment available on a typical hood.
There are numerous problems with the above mentioned single drawstring adjustment hood system, primarily being that the hood has a substantially rigid attachment to the jacket about a long axis that goes through the user's head, neck, torso, and legs, such that when the user turns their head from side to side, the hood keeps the face opening periphery in a single orientation facing forward thus causing the user to lose their peripheral vision quickly as their head turns within the substantially rigid hood assembly, that is caused from the hood having a loose fit to an outer surface of the user's head with the face opening periphery being reduced in size or area resulting in limiting the user's access through the hood to the external environment to be facing forward only, thus being very inconvenient for the user in sporting activities wherein the user turns their head side to side quite frequently. The loose fit of the hood to the user's head outer surface is of necessity to accommodate the largest head size of any user and to accommodate other items that are adjacent to the user's outer head surface such as eye glasses, sunglasses, headphones or earphones, hats, earmuffs, headbands, and the like.
A way to help alleviate this problem is to leave the drawstring in a loose state, thus resulting in a larger face opening periphery to expand the ability of the user to have increased peripheral vision when turning their head side to side, however, doing this causes another problem in that the hood has opening gaps around the user face periphery that can destroy the function of the hood to help keep the user's head warm, in allowing inside of the hood cold wind, snow, sleet, or rain to enter the hood through the opening gaps around the user's face periphery, this issue is especially acute when the user is moving forward through the external environment when running, bicycling, and the like. So basically the typical jacket hood is really only useable when the user is only facing forward and not turning their head side to side, being usually not the case. Wherein, the typical hood assembly that comes with a jacket is only of minor benefit to the user.
Of course an alternative could be for the user to use a stocking cap for head warmth that does not have the problem of the loss of user peripheral vision when the user turns their head side to side as the stocking cap is not attached to the jacket and rotates with the head, however, this brings on another problem in that the stocking cap fails to provide warmth or shelter for the user's neck, being a problem in cold wet weather, further if the user in engaged in high head movement activities, the stocking cap will not stay attached to the head well, unless of course a chin strap is used with the stocking cap, however, still having the aforementioned problem of the user's neck being exposed to wet and cold weather.
These hood problem issues have been somewhat identified in the prior art with a summary given below.
Starting with U.S. Pat. No. 5,606,746 to Shelton, et al., disclosed is an article of clothing including a vest portion and a detachable hood having a polyacrylamide copolymer filler that cools the body by activating the cooling stage, which is done by placing the vest and hood in water for the required time or placing the vest and hood in ice water for required time. In Shelton, the top and bottom pieces of material will dry and the filler will remain cool and moist for use in hot weather, the top and bottom pieces are worn by placing on the body and attaching fasteners and will keep the individual user cool for hours and the top and bottom pieces are made of materials that can be washed by the individual user, wherein they can be stored for days in plastic bags in the refrigerator. Also, in Shelton, if long-term storage is needed, the top and bottom pieces can be line-dried and then put away until ready for use again.
Further, in the prior art in U.S. Pat. No. 1,485,392 to Halek, disclosed is a long loose overcoat to which a hood or helmet is detachably affixed by three buttons—intermediate the shoulders immediately beneath the rear side of a soft single-ply collar bordering the neck opening of the coat, see column 2, lines 65-71. In addition, Halek teaches elements 9 and 10, wherein the hood is sewed for side vision being a fixed relationship as between elements 9 and 10, see FIG. 1 in particular, note that Halek does not teach the use of elastic string for forming the hood to the user's outer surface of their head, thus as soon as the user in Halek turns their head side to side they will lose their peripheral vision as the hood will stay rigidly attached to the coat having only a forward facing opening as previously identified as one of the problems for current hoods.
Continuing, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,370,692 to Duyn, et al. disclosed is a waterproof garment that includes a jacket and a hood which is convertible into a ventilated carrying bag for storing the jacket. In Duyn, a ventilated waterproof hood includes an inner ventilated material and an outer waterproof layer having an interior surface and an exterior surface. Wherein the outer waterproof layer in Duyn includes at least two side portions; a top of the head portion abutting the side portions, the top of the head portion comprising a front of the head portion and a back of the head portion; a base of the neck portion; and a back portion, the back portion extending from the back of the head portion to the base of the neck portion and extending from one side portion to the other side portion, as best shown in FIGS. 1 through 5. The inner ventilated material in Duyn is attached to the back of the head and to the two side portions of the interior surface of the outer waterproof layer, and the inner ventilated material defines a ventilated pocket in the ventilated waterproof hood. Duyn does teach an elastic string at element 45, see FIGS. 5 through 11, however, that forms the pocket for storing the jacket, thus elastic string 45 has no function related to retaining the hood to the user's head in any unique way, further Duyn teaches a conventional user face periphery elastic drawstring, see element 70 in FIGS. 3 through 5.
Next, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,369,809 to Hall, disclosed is an adjustable hood system including a pair of drawstrings, see element 16 in FIG. 1, extending from the two temple areas, see element 18 of FIG. 1, of the wearer to the area corresponding to the nape of the neck, see eyelets element 22 in FIG. 1, wherein the drawstrings 16 are cinched at lock element 28, see FIGS. 1 and 2. In Hall, the drawstrings 16 provide both vertical and lateral adjustability being angled therethrough passageways element 14, see FIGS. 1 and 2, around the head of the wearer to allow the wearer to customize the fit of the hood, regardless of the size of the wearer's head or the amount of layers of headgear under the hood, however, passageways 14 have more of a vertical orientation tending to pull the hood backwards from and off of the forehead upwardly at the temple fixed attachment area (for drawstrings 16) to and toward the nape of the user's neck, thus resulting in crown area element 19 being pulled over the top portion of the user's head towards the back or nape of the user's neck, see FIG. 1, also see column 4, lines 10-18, this leaves shell area element 24, 26 as shown in FIG. 1, to remain loose in relation to the user's head as in a conventional hood, or the area that remains loose is in-between passageways 14 and collar panel 23, also as shown in FIG. 2.
Further, in Hall, the drawstrings 16 are completely independent from the conventional drawstrings 36, thus resulting in the drawstrings only are cinched tight the crown area element 19 is not secured at all to the user's head, especially the user's forehead area, in fact Hall teaches the use only of the drawstrings 16 by stating that a simple single singular motion by the user is used for hood adjustment, wherein the conventional drawstrings 36 are optional to use, see column 2, line 40 to column 3, line 10, this teaching in Hall would leave the shell area element 24, 26 as shown in FIG. 1, to remain loose in relation to the user's head as in a conventional hood, or the area that remains loose is in-between passageways 14 and collar panel 23, also as shown in FIG. 2, wherein the loose shell area element 24, 26 could block peripheral vision of the user and allow for cold air and moisture to enter the hood. Also, in Hall, drawstring element 36 functions as a conventional user facial periphery drawstring as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, having the previously mentions problems of reducing the user's peripheral side vision when the user turns their head side to side about the long axis.
Next, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,698,014 to Little, et al. disclosed is a combination jacket and hood in which the hood is attached to the neckline of the jacket by a strip of flexible fabric, such as a knitted piece or termed a strip element 8, as shown in FIGS. 2, 3, and 4, which permits the hood to move relative to the jacket. Thus in Little, it is recognized that the loss of user peripheral side vision is made worse by the typical fairly rigid attachment of the hood to the jacket, however, as FIG. 1 shows, the hood has a very loose fit to the user's head outer surface, wherein the user's head in turning side to side about the long axis would still allow the user's head to rotate within the hood interior, thus resulting in the user losing the side peripheral vision, as being the previously identified problem with conventional hood design and structure. Although Little claims that the hood will rotate about the long axis with the user's head rotating the same way, there is no teaching of how the hood affixes to the user's head outer surface to accomplish this.
What is needed is a portable, mobile, and easily removably engagable hood apparatus that doesn't any loose or separate require straps, clasps, fasteners, hooks or any other type of hardware for removably engaging the hood to a jacket of the user's choice, thus greatly simplifying putting on and taking off of the hood apparatus from the jacket, also resulting in a much smaller, lighter, and easy to carry hood apparatus. Further as previously identified in the cited prior art, overcoming the reduced user peripheral vision due to the hood from the user turning their head side to side about the long axis while having the hood provide maximum protection from external environment weather elements would be highly desirable.